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The information in this weblog is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. This weblog does not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of my employer. It is solely my opinion. Inappropriate comments will be deleted at the authors discretion.

Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category

So a while ago I was hit up by ZUS Smart to try out their Car Charger (which doubles as a GPS Tracker) and they asked if I’d like to give it a try and write a review. I’m not one to do that normally, but it seemed interesting enough that I said, Sure, why not!

As a disclaimer, they did send me a unit free of charge and I took it through the wringer to find its faults, its flaws and its benefits; because If I’m actually going to put fingers to keyboard, it’s to tell you the straight truth on it. :)

I know what you’re saying, “Derr, I have a charger, I got a free one at some arbitrary event’” Yea you’re telling me. My car is loaded with STACKS of lighter chargers which I’ve used to charge devices. Unfortunately, they’ve also done things which are less than desireable:

Gotten VERY hot

Fuses burned out in them

ACTUALLY CAUGHT FIRE BEFORE

Chargers with multiple Amp settings been iffy

Oh and worst of all, charged either very poorly or not at all

What was pretty awesome about this charger is that it actually did what it said on the tin!

Charged fast

Charged consistently

Did NOT get hot while doing it!

I know it is a lot to ask for and probably weird to expect something to do what it’s supposed to do, but we’ve really grown complacent in our culture to expect little from the things we purchase, so this was a nice surprise!

OMG WAIT! YOU SAID GPS TRACKER?!

Yea, I did say that. Thanks for remembering! :)

This has actually been kind of cool, it remembers where you park your car and communicates that with your phone! I’ve actually used it while hiking to check like, “Where is the direction of my car” and lo and behold it points in the direction of my car and an approximate distance. I borrowed some of their stock photos for this, because I didn’t do a screencap of my phone when I was *8* miles away from my car on a hike and had it point to that direction. Mainly because it just works so I didn’t even think to do that notification :)

Oh and it integrates its app with the Apple Watch so when I park my car it says, “Hey, you’re parked! Do you want to set a timer!”

I have used this here in Portland as when you pay at the Meter you’re paying for ‘x’ amount of time. So I mark that I paid for an hour at the meter and the app reminds me as we get close to that time so I can get back to my car before I pay a hefty fine!

There have been shortcomings. When I park in enclosed garages where it cannot get GPS Signal you get a message like this image, where it says, “Hey, take a picture of where your car is!” Which is pretty cool and convenient, as I do that in Airport parking garages as it is!

So to break down some Pros and Cons so you know where I’m coming from:

PROs:

Charges FAST!

Keeps track of your cars location

Will actually QUICKLY update your location on a map while driving using its internal GPS

Don’t have to remember where you parked your car or if your meter is about to expire

Integrates with Apple Watch

Did I mention it CHARGES FAST?! :)

Cons:

It does not work when parked under heavy concrete or out of GPS signal

If you unplug the charger it treats it like you’re parked

If someone else takes your car you won’t know where it is as it relies on Bluetooth for its initial sharing GPS location with your app

All-in, a pretty hefty little number of features and a much better replacement for those very cheap and often ‘free’ (you get what you pay for) USB car chargers!

Welcome to the ix4-200d! This single device is a life changer for both the active home user as well as the SOHO business user who wants to take things to the NEXT Level!

If you’re not familiar with this little beast in a box, here are some of the high-lights which this brings to bear! NFS, CIFS, iSCSI, AFP Support, BitTorrent client, Xbox Media Services, Printer, USB, Rsync, Celerra integration, dual gigabit Ethernet?! Oh, and did I mention it’s –VMware- Certified out of the box?!?

Now, seriously! Let’s take a tour of this little system which has taken quite a step or integration in my household!

When I first powered this system up, it sat there for awhile without me doing anything to it. Why? This thing is SILENT! I forgot I had powered it up, and as a result didn’t even bother to check what the IP address was that it assigned itself! Well, out of the box, it came with a RAID protection I was fine with! I had options to change it, but I’m comfortable with it!

Frankly, this covers most of what you need to do with the device and you’re set! –Done!- But that doesn’t mean you need to stop there!

Most of the features in this unit can be configured by simply checking a box and poof! You’re done!

I have mine configured in the following fashion: AFP for my Macbook to backup, NFS and iSCSI for my ESX Servers, CIFS for local network file access, Media Services to interface with my Xbox360 to stream content and pictures, rsync Server to strangely replicate the box between this ix4 and an ix2 as well as to replicate over to the Celerra VSA :) (Oh, and the Avamar Virtual Edition running in a VM backing up all of my home machines while taking up far less space with inline deduplication :))

I don’t have Video Surveillance enabled yet, but it’s nice to know the integration is built in there! (Printers also nice, but this lives in a closet, so I’m not sure I want to do that :))

So, hopefully you get the opportunity to play around with this power house in a box, and with the ix2-200d offering the same services (but with less disks and less IOPS) Oh, and if you’re interested in buying one, it’d help if you knew the “retail” costs!

So, that gives you an idea of “retail” cost, now I’d say, go to Fry’s and try not to pay more than $599.99 for the 4TB model (Fry’s is your friend! ;))